Theological Truth #2 – “Reverence for Life” is not a Christian Belief
Isn't all life sacred? It is a creation of God, so in a sense, yes it is sacred. We do not kill wantonly. We do not kill without a sense of the value of the life being taken. In fact, in the Old Testament the Hebrew people were commanded to kill for sacrifices precisely because life had value. Because God commanded his people to kill for sacrifices, some people think of God as bloodthirsty, but that is not the case. One of the lessons he wanted to teach his people is that life had value. It was precious, but that sin costs the separation of man from that which is more precious – true life as it is found in God. The sacrifices were an illustration of that truth.
Some people critical of Christian hunters have a misplaced view of the phrase “reverence for life.” It can even lead to the worship of animals and away from the worship of the Creator. One critic of Sister John Paul, a Jainist woman in India, sent long email rants to rebuke her. Jainists, like Hindus, teach that all living things are destined for reincarnation, but the Christian view of history is not an endless cycle of reincarnation. That view ultimately sacrifices the uniqueness of each individual for some kind of broad stream of living beings that are in the end indistinct from each other. For Christians history has one ultimate destination – a creation redeemed by Christ.